Synthetic Productions, Marked UP & The Block Productions have teamed up to present

==>> ILL.GATES <<==

ll.Gates is a Toronto-based composer, performer and educator. Over the past 16 years, he has established a global fanbase and a reputation as one of the most dynamic electronic music artists around. He regularly tours across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Gates has headlined at such festivals as Burning Man, Shambala, the World Electronic Music Festival and the New Orleans Jazz Festival. His first full-length release, Autopirate (Muti Music, 2008) charted and continues to sell strongly. His upcoming triple album The ill.Methodology and accompanying online course are highly anticipated. Gates was recently selected as one of the Next 100 by URB Magazine.

Many of his contemporaries cite ill.Gates as a key artistic influence and inspiration in their music. While on tour, Gates frequently teaches workshops to grateful and attentive audiences, in which he shares his highly effective approach to producing quality finished music as well as insights into the mentality and strategies necessary to succeed in the music business.

==>> KJ SAWKA <<==

Seeing Kevin Sawka on the drums is the only way to believe the hype. He can play the most complex of jungle, drum’n’bass and breakbeats utilizing no loops and no extended samples only his two hands and two feet. If you can catch him in the right moment live, at a show, or in a studio session you’ll witness him perform each and every 808 bass kick, snare slap, and compressed highhat tick himself, in real-time.

“I’d like to be able to play like that all the time, however, live, I want to give the people the fully-produced, complex sound I’m envisioning, so I not only play the drums, but I manually trigger the basslines, melodies, riffs and now even the light show and projections with my drums so it’s a lot harder to focus on playing every single little single sound with my sticks. But it’s like I’m playing even more with my sticks lately, not less.”

10 years ago when drum’n’bass was very near it’s zenith in popularity, and Kevin was playing in prominent rock bands in Seattle (grunge was huge) someone played him an LTJ Bukem track, and, as he says, “It scorched my brain. I dropped everything, and focused solely on how to recreate that on the drums.”